It’s become clearer to me over the last year that people need some sort of scale that represents the dialog surrounding the production of environmentally friendly products, buildings, businesses. The facts are muddy given the degrees by which a company or the products one produces or that we as consumers purchase are considered environmentally friendly.

While this scale is by no means exhaustive, it is my attempt at trying to clarify those degrees or at least create the debate surrounding it. In other words, it’s a beginning, albeit a primitive one. Until the Environmental Protection Agency creates certification not unlike what the Food and Drug Administration does for what we ingest, we will have to do our own monitoring.

Consumers and people in industry continue to speak about Greenwashing….marketing that says a product or service is green but isn’t really. Maybe it takes more energy to create that product so negates it’s greeness, or the product isn’t based on any green properties per se only that it is to be kept for a long time (not disposable in other words such as bespoke tailoring or even haute couture), so where or how to judge the eco friendliness of your choices? The Green Scale is meant to create debate and help create better definitions associated with our progress. And, progress, not perfection, is what we are looking for.

Aladdin has a proprietary manufacturing process called e Cycle ™ which takes product originally headed for landfills, i.e., cottage cheese containers, yogurt containers, dip tubs and so on, breaks it down then uses it along with its recycled plastic to create its mugs and travel mugs which are also recyclable wherever plastic water bottles can be recyled. So, some percentage of post consumer industrial waste is now the buzz phrase. In Aladdin’s case it is 25% post industrial consumer waste and 75% recycled product that makes up their BPA free water bottle, mugs, and travel mugs.

In the case of Design Ideas’ EcoGen, their proprietary technology that has created plastic that looks and acts and feels (even tastes like) plastic but is in fact biodegradeable in composts so comes even closer to being perfect, don’t ya think? Except one must basically plant it or put it in soil for the proper bacteria to come together before it can break down. Tossed into a landfill, Eco Gen’s product won’t break down and there’s the rub.

But, to my knowledge, no one is doing that technology.

Bed Bath Beyond and Container Store both carry Eco Gen’s bath products. This season Eco Gen added onto to this product line with desktop product. And while this is a wonderful move, another equally important one is the issue of price. Eco Gen says their product pricing is being reduced by some 30%. The company spokesman didn’t say where that reduction was coming from, but one can guess…..economies of scale are being achieved but also in general prices coming down wherever they are getting it produced. This helps. Once more of that happens then the larger plastic guys whose product is more commodity and mostly based on price can also take advantage of the technology. (That green will just become a deeper color green….it may still be a number 9, but it’s a stronger color of green, right?).

Henry Poole & Co. 2007 ForbesTraveler.com “London’s Bespoke Tailors.”

And then there are the conversations that took place in the Conference on Sustainability in India for the fashion industry. Suzy Menkes interviewed Stella McCartney who is a leader in the fashion industry on living and producing environmentally conscious products (she uses no real leather or furs and uses organic cotton), also made reference to bespoke tailoring like what one finds on Seville Row in London. Something someone keeps for 10 years or more, (haute couture belongs in this bracket as well depending on the designer, I think). With the continuing furor over disposable fashion created cheaply with cheap fabrics and even cheaper (some think sweat shops, and who really knows?) labor purchasing better quality goods that just last longer and aren’t meant to be replaced must be considered as a serious part of the equation (green scale ™). Made once, kept for 10-15 years, perhaps put into Good Will and becomes part of someone else’s wardrobe for maybe another 4 years suggests another type of sustainability.

I can not engage in this conversation without bringing up China and the energy it is taking to bring goods in from China. The supply chain to me is where much of the focus needs to go (and on packaging) to help create more enviromentally friendly businesses and products. It’s as much a part of the Green Scale ™ as the creation of products that break down in composts or are recycled even with post consumer waste. We can’t ignore China as a resource obviously but we can use more local manufacturers or craftsmen to make our product…..this too has to be placed on the Green Scale ™, but where? On it’s own? As part of a company’s basket of green practices? Nau, Inc. might have been a 10 on this Green Scale ™, but they filed. Granted they were purchased, and thankfully continue today, however, their story is one that just indicates how expensive perfection is and how and why we can’t get their immediately. Progress not perfection.

And so, the conversation continues.

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This is a departure from where we have been but I’ve wanted to put these ads up for awhile. It’s part of a marketing campaign I did for a company who wanted to use their core product, poly vinyl coated wire shelving, to create storage for the scrapbooker.

This ad campaign was tremendously successful. The first shot in particular (top) brought customers into our booth at the trade shows in droves….not to mention people just being so excited about the product offering period. We positioned it as an affordable at home storage system with some on-the-go products as scrapbookers always take their projects to crop events which take place at venues outside their home so they have to have a way to transport these items to those places.

I had the product in both Hobby Lobby and A.C. Moore within six months of our beginning to ship and it hit the top ten list for the holiday season of products ordered at organize.com within that same first six months. What happened was that we got some significant space from a special edition of a Memory Makers Storage publication (on shelves for more than 3 months). Because it was still early in the game and we didn’t have a whole host of retailers set up around the country, I had the factory’s 800 number listed and we routed the customer to our online partners. So you know that story, “He who hesitates is lost,” and “the early bird catches the worm.” In that particular case, the early bird was Organize.com.

The adman on the project was Scott Schafer from Schafer Associates, here in St. Louis, and of course I highly recommend Scott. He was very quick at getting the point of the matter, offered more than one solution to our solution, and kept the thread running throughout (we had 3 different ads we ran within a year at various times according to other events we had scheduled).

In the words of Hannibal from the hit television series, The A Team, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

You can find out more about Scrapbook Solutions at their website, www.scrapbooksolutions.net. And to see a video about Scrapbook Solutions you can visit A.C. Moore’s scrapbook video section (I’m in the video too!). Besides seeing how our top two items work and how the system comes together, this video also highlights the packaging, which was also a significant boon to the product line’s success. When you see the video, you’ll see that our choice of colors and how we put them together along with the shots of the product and the company logo came together in a perfect harmony of color, clarity, and attention grabbing.

P.S. The parent company of Scrapbook Solutions is Industrial Wire Products, Inc. and I was the VP Sales & Marketing for the retail side of their business and was responsible for not only this product launch but also their core product line found in most storage and mass retailers around the country and online….

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While all of this mind bending revolutionary technology is taking place in a quest for sustainable solutions, there is also just plain ‘ole taking recycled material or waste product and repurposing it for another use instead of letting it sit in landfills forever.

PTS America with their full line of recycled newspaper and magazines in office desk accessories, 222 DECOR, makes a strong statement in desk accessories for the office. These are stiking looking designs, with real utility, and if it recyles a lot of newspaper and magazines in the process, it’ll be a winner. These two particular items are a magazine holder and a garbage can….the outside is made of water hyacinth and cotten thread with the inside made up of recycled magazines.

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Sarut Group (pronounced sa roo) who owns the Pylone Stores, (pronounced pee lone) four of them in Manhattan (Grand Central pictured top) but with a website and distribution in thousands of specialty retailers, catalog and chain stores. However, seeing all of it in one place is nothing short of a thrill.

New York Soho location

It’s a U.S. division in partnership with a French company….need I say more? I kept wanting to understand their design aesthetic better because it is not falling into any of my neat little trend descriptors. Is that because it is French? Because it is not retro….it is not this minimalist contemporary aesthetic…it is not referencing the Japanese Manga movement, so it is kind of going against the tide so is it ahead of it?

Fun, kitchy yet cool, and very clever. Clever. That’s my final word. Oprah named one of their items in her must have list, the umbrellas; and overall the press has loved the company, being referenced in In Style, O Home, and others….looking at it, I felt happy, it was a happy visit in their booth. And while the gents in charge were in and of themselves cool dudes, they were, dare I say, nice? A sort of French “Charles In Charge.” Ooh la la.

Tell me you wouldn’t be happy popping toast in those first thing in the morning (better than sugar, less fattening, less sweet and yet the results are the same…..a lift!).

They also have the answer for hip happening lighting, desk and ceiling.

But, they also have very cool kitchen utensils. You can see much more than I’ve represented here on their website, Sarut.com.

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The standout themes of this show were sustainability (and the definition and education of same), materials innovation, and color.

This last one, color, is of no surprise to my readers as that is what I earlier stated as one of the top 5 2009-10 top trends (color cornucopia), and for that matter sustainability will be of no surprise to either my readers or my clients–the fact that housewares companies stepped up their game for all of the above is surprising though as aside from tabletop a lot of the housewares companies stick with their same programs for as long as they can. In other words, innovation has NOT been a hallmark of this industry, but I will say that this show in Chicago has most definitely and finally changed with the times.

That said, there are stand-out companies who have exemplified the attributes of these themes above and beyond, and that is how I hope to personalize each of the aforementioned themes (trends if you will) of the show.

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Color Palettes and what the color trends are for 2009, 2010, and beyond is a hot topic right now among design and product development professionals round the world.

I’ve come across something that defies a color palette trend per se….the trend is more like asking the question, “How shall we define color?” and then coming up with an answer. That is what Melbourne-based artist Samantha Parsons did by coming up with the “Book Screen,” (above image) a room divider made from vintage hardback book covers that span the chromatic scale. For enquiries on how to purchase this, contact www.formatfurniture.com, or you can email me and I will be happy to give you the sales managers direct email address. Parsons has hit on two solid ideas…..crafting a room divider that is useful as well as artful, and using a color palette that doesn’t end the color question but begins it.

You decide, and let me know what you’re questions are. The lines are now open.

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I have a prediction for me for 2008 and that is that this is going to be a year of firsts; everything I am coming across of late just tops it all. This latest one is from Discovery News and I think I’ll be throwing many things out once this gets to market cause it solves just about all of my desktop organizational problems; Smart Quickie Notes Organize Themselves (and other uses for RFID tags): an official solution to the ubiquitous Post-It-Note.

Read On….

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After grappling with how to say Happy New Year to Everyone, this is what I decided on: a sneak peek to my 2009-2010 top trends, as I see it, and as a way to help wrap up 08 depending on where you are in your buying, your product launches, your presentations, or your strategy planning.

1. Color Cornucopia: Eye Candy for the Color Maven’s Soul. Image from John Galliano for Dior Haute Couture Spring 08 Collection. Seattlepi.com.

2. Mother Earth Beats Her Chest: Science Popular.

“An armada of robot submarines and marine sensors are to be deployed across the Atlantic, from Florida to the Canary Islands, to provide early warning that the Gulf Stream might be failing, an event that would trigger cataclysmic freezing in Britain for decades.” Meric Srokosz of the Southampton Oceanographic Centre, explaining the purpose of the $31 million Rapid Watch system he is heading up, does just that, citing the plotline of “The Day After Tomorrow” - specifically the collapse of the Gulf Stream - as a potential occurrence that warrants further investigation. From Treehugger.com and The Observer.

3. Finishing Touches Birth Special Effects. Photo Yohji Yamamoto, Mens FW 08, Style.com.

4. High Tech High Touch in Living Breathing Action. Image from Nau.com’s trademark “webfronts,” which is their idea of recognizing how the internet has changed consumer’s buying behavior.

5. Cross Marketing/Collaborations in Unlikely Places/Partners Creating Phenomenal Hybrids. From Designspotter and Globus by Michiel Van der Kley.

These are but a few of the macro trends I allude to during my strategy sessions or across the year in trend newsletters, reports and product development/programming strategy sessions.

Let me know if you have questions about how the above references might effect your planning for 08-2010, any initiatives that Trendbites publisher, the kimbro agency, may help you support in ‘08 and/or if you’d like to subscribe to any number of Trendbites’ sister, Trendcites (rhymes with bites!), publications.

We do trend newsletters, customized trend reports, product development strategizing and implementation, marketing consulting,
color palettes and by request only, show reports.

You can reach me by email at kim@trendcites.com.

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by Marko.

Since I’m from Slovenia, I might as well share some of our most important industrial (interior) design achievements, especially during the Yugoslavia years. Aynway, I bought one of these chairs in wenge, called the Rex chair, by Niko Kralj (his last name means »king«), a couple of weeks ago. Comfy. The funny thing is that I actually first sat on one of those during my exams at the University. See, our professors are proud people. Anyway, during those years Mr. Niko Kralj, an architect who studied with Eames, supposedly almost didn’t make a single penny, or should I say: dinar, from his folding furniture designs, originating from 1952. Around 2 million were made. The design is inspired by, or a part of, so-called Scandinavian nature-minimalism, so the construction is simple and was first based on solid beech wood with a fluid folding mechanism. His design principle was always innovative simplicity (technically speaking), good form, and availability or social responsibility (»good design for low incomes«). Boy, how the times have changed. The originals can cost up to more than $200 dollars, the new ones are a bit cheaper, around $120. Of course, it all depends on the size, and type of wood. Well, you can get an idea of all the styles possible in the pictures above. Here’s a link to the catalogue in pdf format in case you’re interested:

http://www.impakta.si/Datoteke/Slike_ostalo/REX_folder_07_mali.pdf

The chair is also included in the MOMA design collection.

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I have a confession to make. I am a pile person…the sort of person who can magically pull that precise piece of paper from an unsuspecting pile and who, when all piles have been organized and filed, can’t find anything. Don’t ask me about this skill. It remains a mystery to me. And while I also confess to being pleased at how my work style still manages to pull everything together, I do ponder dreamily of the paperless office.

I would like for Bill Gates and his cohorts to approve of me.

So to that end, I have searched the globe and the internet tirelessly in hopes of finding the “perfect workspace,” “the perfect storage/file system.” I have even at one point tried a professional organizer with some success, and had a brief encounter with a pre Blackberry Palm Pilot. Then I took a stab at creating my own calender system having been an avid student of the Franklin Planner System, then the Franklin Covey Planner System, and now the At-A-Glance Quick Notes Planner (I still need the written word). It is a subject of great pride for me that I got my daughter started on a planner system when she was in middle school.
Professionally I work with several companies on creating storage and organizational products for home, home office, office and back to school (including dorm storage).

So as you see, I am a passionate consumer as well as creator of storage and organizational products and things….that said, I do believe I have found the perfect workspace and organizational system to, alas, put to rest the anxiety of this self proclaimed clutterphile and become, ahhhh, organized. Here is my perfect officespace, compliments of Ikea. What’s yours?

If you need a little help, check out Ikea’s Small business guide. It helps you organize your thoughts by getting you to understand want you wnat to achieve out of your space, then you can build it out from there, all online. And their tips and recommendations for workspace stations helps to direct your focus. In fact exploring Ikea’s Workspace Solutions in general is like chicken soup for the clutterphile’s soul, beginning with the small business solutions, making a pit stop at De-Clutter and Organize and then moving on to any other spaces you may want to organize with images of totally cool spaces and the product that fills them from every room of your home.

Let me know how it goes….maybe I should do a before and after myself since this is something I plan to get under control for 2008 and there’s no time like the present to get started.

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